BBC Videotape archive

I couldn't agree more personally. All of my raw footage from stuff i've shot is on Hard Disks, and i've had so many of them fail on me over the last few years. However i'm sure if they were to set up a server based storage system, it would have several clones just in case one of them fails, as its bound to happen at one point or another.

D3 is a composite digital format, whereas Digibeta is component. Digi decks also had the innovation that it outputted SDI (everything on a single co-ax) Therefore is Digi is much more suited to digital broadcasting - you don't really want any composite. The other factor is that Panasonic superseeded D3 with D5, which like Digi is component..

Panasonics formats were never quite as successful as Sony's - Betacam/SP was dominent over MII and the same with Digi over D3/D5

Digi isn't going anywhere fast, it is the defacto standard for SD, also Sony make any new formats backward compatible - so an HDCAM machine will also playback Digi, SP etc

Most server storage is based on a RAID thus making them more reliable. More often than not though it's the ancillary equipment that fails - the database falling over or getting corrupted or the in/out ports going haywire. The server itself is normally the most reliable bit of the system.

However the one advantage of tape is that even if the power goes off you can get your material back with a screwdriver... on a server it's non-tangiable and very easy for it to go missing

[quote="Mr-Stabby"]

That's unlikely for a while. Archive storage can still be on tape based systems , such as Sony's Petasite. You'd never transmit an archived programme from that, just move it when needed onto an on-line server from there.

http://www.sony.ca/storage/auto.htm

And data tape-based archiving is how it's done in real world playout facilities - though, of course, when one archive tape dies, you've not lost one programme, but lots, and you've got to hope for the best that the people who own the content haven't put all their faith in the archive and haven't junked their original tapes...

2" dubbing is effectively finished. BBC Post Production got rid of their last 2" VTR a few years ago, though BBC News retained one to replay their old PasBs (which may not have been dubbed to D3?)

1" dubbing is, I believe, still ongoing. Certainly you still see trolleys of 1" tape spools for archiving in the basement at TVC - or I did quite recently.



The 2" stuff was archived to D3, as were the early 1" transfers. More recently both a D3 and a DigiBeta copy have been made.

D3 has advantages over D3 for archiving 2" and 1" material. D3 is an uncompressed format that records the composite format digitally. 1" and 2" are composite formats.

DigiBeta is compressed (albeit lightly) and is component, so the composite signal from the 1" or 2" format has to be decoded. PAL decoders are not all perfect - and the best "TRANSFORM" device is not used everywhere. Whilst the DigiBeta copy may be easier to handle and replay - it cannot be better quality than the D3 copy - and if improvements are made to PAL decoder design, you will need to return to the D3 copy to exploit them to their fullest.

(BBC Dr Who DVDs of the colour episodes of the original 1963-1987 series are made via Transform decoders from the D3 dubs for example)



Suspect they will try and keep D3 running for a while longer - and given it is a close relative of D5 - which is still in widespread use in it's HD-D5 variant (effectively an HD compressor bolted onto a D5 VTR) - there is still likely to be a degree of support. NBC also used D3 extensively - so along with the BBC have a strong interest in D3 continuing to work.

Dubbing D3 to Digibeta potentially throws away picture information permanently when it PAL decodes - not a good situation to be in for archival - so retaining D3 replay facilities is still quite important.

Interesting to track broadcast tape formats.

Quad 2" lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s (colour added in the 60s in the UK), 1" C format arrived in the late 70s and survived into the 90s. D3 arrived in time for the Barcelona Olympics and is still, just about , in use today.

(Then again - some of the BVW75 BetaSP VTRs knocking around are old enough to vote...)

They do, but support and spare parts are declining, even when I was using the format regularly 6 or 7 years ago they were apparently struggling to find (or pay for) new heads. I got the impression that they're like the concordes - with some machines being used as spare parts for others

Actually thinking about it, film dubbing is still ongoing although only on-request (when a bit of film is needed it is dubbed off or played stright from Telecine)



Won't they now be dubbing off the D3 2" material onto Digibeta so that everything has both formats?

What's the deal with the BFI archive? Most (indeed all) of what I've read on their website about accessing material seems to refer to the BFI library - i.e. written documents - yet they have extensive summaries of old TV programmes in their database (including lists of all the contributors). So are those programmes kept anywhere, by the BFI, the BBC, or both?

They recently announced the on-demand viewing thing in London, but that seems to be a much narrower selection of clips.

I was wondering this a week or so ago when I was trying to work out if there was a way to get hold of a recording of '2000 Today' ....

It's not just the professionals for whom futureproofing is a major issue. As someone with a large amount of material on domestic formats it's a huge headache.

I began dubbing my earliest VHS onto DVD in 2004, and I would have happily junked the tapes once I'd done so. Then, Gareth Randall on MHP warned that in his experience, recordable DVD and CD-Rs tended to corrupt in as little as six months. If that's the case then far from futureproofing, you might just as well put a match to your tapes. Since then progress on converting the archive has been sporadic; I dare not throw away the tapes and have had to arrange storage, even offering them to Transdiffusion for safe keeping.

So far I haven't had any problems playing back anything I've ever put on DVD. But I was recently unable to copy some Grange Hill episodes for an actress who was in them; the discs played OK, but Nero Recode flagged up CRC errors. If I tried copying the VOB files to my PC (with a view to re-encoding in PowerProducer) at least one file would not copy.

The other issue with recordable DVD is that dubbing an E180 VHS requires at least two discs. Yes I know you can use EP, but that causes loss of picture quality and therefore misses the point. Not to mention that when you've got a shelf full of DVDs in standard jewel cases, it ends up taking as much if not more shelf space than the original tapes.

Reading this you might think it's best to leave your video collections on video, but as fewer VCRs are sold that will not be a viable option. So what's the answer?

Hmm - suspect that was a money thing.

At one point (some) D5 machines could have a D3 playback card installed - which suggested that (some) D5 heads and transports would read D3 tapes - though I don't know if anyone took them up on this. I would imagine, given that D5 is a widespread format (HD-D5 is effectively based on D5 SD VTRs with an HD->SD compressor built in) I'd imagine there may be some hope.

Also - I wouldn't underestimate the power of NBC - though they are now a Sony, not Panasonic, broadcaster.

Well film is less of an issue - as you can store it for long periods without it degrading - and whenever you telecine it you can exploit new telecine technology. Film transferred in the 80s won't look as good as the same film transferred now.

There is certainly no need to transfer film to VT for archival - the original film is the best thing to retain.

(The Beeb can still telecine their 16mm and 35mm telerecordings - film recording of video - of 405 line B&W TV shows. You'd be hard pressed to find many 405 line 2" VTRs now)

One serious archive suggestion is to make monochrome RGB separate film recordings of important material and retain the film copies. Monochrome film has survived for over 100 years - much longer than video tape



Won't they now be dubbing off the D3 2" material onto Digibeta so that everything has both formats?[/quote]

No - I suspect they will wait until the new digital archive project starts and then transfer D3 and Digibeta material to that.

Hopefully it will be a system that allows continuous upgrading of the media - and in an ideal world stores everything in its original format uncompressed (some hope)